The Secret to Getting Ahead Is Getting Started – The Startup Issue (Part II)

Last weekend I went back to my Cambridge college for my 10 (yes, 10!) year reunion dinner. Apart from discovering that first year students are now the beneficiaries of a £12 million refurb which means they all have en-suite bathrooms and don’t have to share showers with 6 other grubby 18 year olds (best first year student accommodation is at Caius, folks!), it felt like little and yet a lot had changed. Everyone still looked pretty much like their 20 year old selves, just now they were partners in big name investment banks or law firms, or backing the next big startup (or being tax consultants!).

One of the things that surprised and touched me was that people I hadn’t seen in years asked me about Suit & Pie and told me how much they had been enjoying the site. I guess that is the power of social media – you send something out into the abyss of ‘post to public’ and pray that someone somewhere will read it and be inspired, or touched, or might just have learnt something new and interesting.

All that to say that sometimes you never know where your little idea or startup or website will lead you, who might be following or who you might meet through it. So in this Part Two of our Startup Issue we catch up with some of the amazing entrepreneurs we have had the pleasure of meeting through Suit & Pie:

Victoria Smith, the founder and editor of digital magazine My Little Black Book whose tagline is ‘Real Women, Honest Writing’. We interviewed Victoria when My LBB was just starting out, so it has been a pleasure to see how much she has achieved in the last year and a half.

Alex Swallow, social entrepreneur extraordinaire who is changing the charity sector for the better with his social initiatives and brand of social good (Social Good Six, Young Charities Trustees).

The Soap Co, a great new company that employs blind, disabled and disadvantaged people to help produce luxury soap products (Black Poppy & White Fig anyone?). Talk about giving back to the community!

Sabine Allaeys, the founder of new YouTube channel “Her Story in History” which aims to tell the stories of little known but inspiring women in STEAM (that’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths!) through some really neat little animations.

We also check out what promise to be two very inspiring and empowering female events – the Women in the World event taking place in London on 7th and 8th October and the SHE Summit taking place in New York on 6th and 7th October.

Mr Smith fills us in on what he has been up to now that summer is almost over, and we help whittle down the Comment Awards shortlist and strike a pose at London Fashion Week in This Week.

As always, if you enjoy this issue do spread the #suitielove on twitter and facebook, or hit subscribe on the Suit & Pie website.

Meet the editor

Welcome

Welcome to our Millennial Issue where we hear from some inspiring Gen Yers who are out to make the world a better place (cheesy but true)! We have some awesome content lined up so do take a peek here and check out our back story on Why Pie?